Solace Found
“Would you sit still? This isn’t fun for me either.” She stated, placing a hand on his shoulder to steady his shaking arm as she wiped the blood out of the deep laceration on his upper arm. Cody knew she hated blood, always had. When it was her own it was fine, but otherwise it made her queasy. “I’m sorry.” He replied, casting a glance back at Bailey as she placed a MedPatch over the wound in order to secure it. For a moment she didn’t look up at him, making sure the patch was on just right, covering the length of the injury and the width. He took the opportunity to admire the woman and smile softly, the expression still alien to him after all these years. Sure he’d smiled, but never truly out of happiness. “We’ll have to go into town, JOTUN injuries are serious.” Came her voice, snapping him out of his brief trance, her eyes darting up to his returning the smile. For a moment he considered arguing. “It’s just a cut Bail” he’d say, and “A cut from a multi-ton piece of farming equipment.” She’d say right back. Cody had long since given up on his shrugging off injuries, he wasn’t in the field, he was a farmer, married and living a happy life out of the reach of even ONI. So he nodded in agreement and hopped to his feet. “I’ll start the Spade then.” He remarked, rolling down his sleeve. “You’ll be riding shotgun.” She shot back, shooting down any attempt at his piloting of their one vehicle. Cody had been a fighter not a driver for good reason they’d discovered after he overturned the vehicle not once but twice coming around a bend. Once again, he did not protest, he only laughed. Opening up the door of their house he held it open with his good arm while Bailey stepped out with the keys. “You are learning!” She remarked teasingly, too which he only scoffed as the two walked to the truck common in the rural colony Keil II, though perhaps colony was inaccurate as it was an independent settlement far beyond the UEG’s grasp. “They taught me to fight, gentlemanliness wasn’t an offered course.” He replied jokingly as he climbed into the truck, wincing a bit as a spike of pain came from his arm. “I figured that out.” She laughed, which only made him smile more. Of course the first time they’d had this joking back and forth it hadn’t gone as well, she’d asked why his parents didn’t teach him, which resulted in him not only getting upset but ending the conversation due to classification and all. But she knew it all now, what he’d seen, what he’d been through, what he’d done. All of what he’d done. As she started up the Spade he looked out across their small farm, it wasn’t much, just a few JOTUNS and them, maybe more someday. It was peaceful, sublime even, and at night he’d wake up terrified it had all just been a dream, but there she was by his side every time. Still, his paranoia hadn’t left him completely, an M45 and BR55 were in the house, stashed along with a suit of SPI, and of course there was an M6 in the console of the Spade. Just in case. “Cody, are you okay?” Bailey asked, taking note of her husband now staring out into the distance over their fields. Instantly he snapped his gaze back towards her, startled almost. For a second he paused. “Arm hurts, that’s why we’re going to town right?” He questioned back sheepishly, his expression confused. She teasingly shook her head, perhaps it was just a side effect from being a soldier all his life that sometimes things just flew over his head. “Besides that, like are you feeling okay?” “I am all good.” He replied, the slightest bit of hesitation in his voice setting Bailey on edge, but she didn’t prod further. More often than not when he stared off like that he was remembering something painful, she did something similar when she thought about Reach, and her family. She stopped herself before she went down that rabbit hole of emotion and began to pull the truck away from their home and begin the drive to their small town, casting a glance over at her husband as he strained his neck to look back over their fields, as if he saw something out in the wheat. She wanted to ask him, but she didn’t, it was probably just an animal, he’d become fascinated with the local wildlife almost as soon as they’d arrived. And in a way, she was right, the figure out in their fields was an animal, but not in the way she’d imagined, or in the way either of them liked.